156 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



they disturbed his rest, and he got up in the night 

 to remove them to a drawer at the furthest end of 

 his room." 



Mr. Trimen considers the larvae contained in 

 the "jumping eggs " to be probably coleopterous, 

 and although he has observed them for some years 

 he has never been able to rear the perfect insects. 

 It is likely that Mr. Bell's jumping seeds may be 

 of coleopterous origin, and we trust he may rear 

 them to a perfect state and let us know the result. 



In the following number of the " Entomologist " 

 to that containing Miss Hopley's letter both Mr. 

 G. C. Bignell, of Plymouth, and Dr. Knaggs, of 

 London, draw attention to similar cases natural to 

 England. Dr. Knaggs recorded (Entomologists' 

 Monthly Magazine, vii, p. 282) an account of some 

 hawthorn buds, which fell from a branch of early 

 flowers, that had been brought indoors. These buds 

 "much astonished and amused me by the queer 

 tricks performed" after they fell upon the table. 

 Mr. Bignell's case was of a parasite in a larva 



of a common moth [Tceniocampa stabalis) named 

 by Bridgeman (Transact. Entom. Soc, Lond., July, 

 1882, p. 151) Limneria kriechbaumeri. It is the 

 pupa-case of this insect which jumps, probably 

 before the larva has become transformed to a 

 pupa. This pupa-case could jump as much as two 

 feet. Mr. Bignell's experiments with these cases 

 went to show that they jump "until they suppose 

 they have buried themselves under some fallen 

 leaves or crevice in the ground. When the 

 bounding is obstructed it will commence to roll, 

 and when it can roll no further, or jump, it will 

 cease trying." 



The so-called jumping of these seeds is supposed 

 to be produced by the grub within acting after the 

 manner of the cheese-maggots, which, by a flip of 

 the head and tail, spring from one spot to another. 

 How they get a leverage within the seed is a 

 problem unsolved. This interesting subject needs 

 much further investigation. 



John T. Carrington. 



NESTING-PLACES OF THE SEDGE-WARBLER. 



By H. Mead-Briggs. 



"CpOR some considerable time past it has been 

 my intention to dispute the assertion put 

 forward by many — that the sedge- warbler (Aci-o- 

 cephalus phragmitis) does not suspend its nest in the 

 reeds ; but unfortunately so many things have 

 otherwise occupied my leisure time I have been 

 reluctantly compelled to abandon the idea up till 

 now. " Unfortunately," I say, in one sense, but 

 perhaps luckily in another, as I have had more 

 time to confirm my own knowledge on the subject, 

 and am thus not hasty to write "without my book," 

 as the saying goes. It has been my habit for 

 several years to hunt a certain marshy locality 

 around Minster, in the Isle of Thanet, Kent, for 

 eggs of the various birds that haunt such places ; 

 and amongst those most frequently found are the 

 reed-warbler (Acrocephalus streperus), and the sedge- 

 warbler. Now, according to that useful little hand- 

 book, " Birds' -nesting and Bird-skinning," by 

 Miller Christy, the sedge-warbler does not suspend 

 its nest in the reeds, " as stated by Selby and 

 others," the not, for special emphasis, I would 

 have you observe, being in italics. Howard 

 Saunders, in his Manual on British Birds, makes 

 a similar remark. I am sorry to say I must 

 dispute these authors, as both myself and Mr. 

 E. E. Elgar, of Wingham, a companion in 

 very many of my researches, have frequently 

 found the nest suspended, showing that our old 

 naturalists, Selby and others, were not so very 



wrong after all. In June, 1894, my friend and I 

 went over our old hunting-ground and succeeded in 

 finding two more suspended nests, making in all 

 about a dozen that it has been our lot to come 

 across within a space of four years. I should have 

 liked very much to have cut and sent you up a 

 nest to prove that there was no mistaken identity, 

 but the nest contained young birds (at least three 

 young birds and two chipped eggs) which I could 

 not bring myself to destroy even for the sake of 

 proof. In the second case the nest was not within 

 reach, without both trespassing and wading, as 

 it was suspended in the reeds in the middle 

 of a "dyke running by the side of the rail- 

 way, from the bank of which we had received 

 orders to quit, in no very polite language, from a 

 ganger but a few moments previously. Still, from 

 the fence which divided both rail and dyke from 

 the marshes, we could not only see the old bird on 

 the nest, but when she had flown we could also 

 identify the eggs quite distinctly, which we had no 

 hesitation in saying were those of the sedge- 

 warbler, but in order to avoid any doubt on the 

 subject I enclose you an egg similar to those in the 

 two nests. 



37, Nunnery Fields, Canterbury. 

 [The egg sent for identification is one of the 

 sedge-warbler. Knowing Mr. Briggs' habit of 

 accuracy, we have no doubt of the correctness of 

 his observation. — Ed. S.-G.] 



